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Tag: NDEW2016

I usually attend two or three of the National Drive Electric Week (formerly National Plug In Day) events a year. I’ve always found them to be fun and key to confirming me as a member of the rEVolution.

This past year’s events in Diamond Bar and Los Angeles were published on this blog pretty much as it happened. I wanted to cover the other two events that I attended in the same manner, but also wanted to share our Long Way Round Trip with readers two months from when the trip happened (and, intentionally, as a way to celebrate National Drive Electric Week.) The trip won out and so, here we are with Santa Monica and Long Beach coverage weeks later.

Santa Monica, September 16, 2016

The Santa Monica NDEW2016 event was held on Friday and Saturday (September 16-17, 2016) in conjunction with Alt Car Expo. I actually went to Santa Monica to attend Alt Car Expo, and was pleasantly surprised by the NDEW2016 event that was being held at the same time.

Drove to Santa Monica in the better half’s Roadster. We’ve been having some challenges with its charging and I wanted to test the car and see if it faults with the chargers at the parking lot in Santa Monica. Luckily (and yet frustratingly), for the test, it did not.

The City of Santa Monica is one of the most EV friendly cities and many of the municipal lots have free charging and the one at the civic center is no exception. Additionally, these Level 2 chargers were also powered by a solar carport.

At 30A, charging was going to take a while, but I’m here for the whole day, so I put my contact information on the EV Hangtag, checked into Plugshare and gave a status on when I expect to be done with charging, and went inside to the Alt Car Expo conference.

The NDEW part of the conference was set up in a cordoned off section of the parking lot.

The check in table for the Alt Car Expo was apparently where one also signs up for the Ride & Drive portion. Something which I did not fill up at the time, and turns out, I should’ve.

The Santa Monica set-up was a mix between EV owners and drivers demonstrating their EVs to the public (no Ride and Drive.)

The Coda Sedan that was at the site was owned by the same gentleman who owns and operates several Codas and Coda gliders. In talking with the owner, it turns out that he was the same Coda that I spotted at the Los Angeles event as well.

The Corbin Sparrow that was at Santa Monica is also the same exact one that was in the Los Angeles event. I guess, I’m not the only EVangelist who enjoys talking EVs with the public.

At this location, only the car manufacturers were the only ones providing Ride and Drive events at this location. The participating vehicles were more than just BEVs, there were several hydrogen fuel cell vehicles as well.

The Honda Clarity,

the Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell,

and the Toyota Mirai was there too.

I was surprised to spot a Diesel Volkswagen at the site, it was part of the Zipcar car-sharing program and I suppose that Alt Car considers this to be an acceptable solution. I’m not too keen on any more diesel vehicles.

Personally, I think the service from Waivecar.com is a better candidate as it provides car sharing AND an EV (Chevy Spark EVs, to be precise) for no cost for the first two hours is quite an amazing deal.

The only plug-in that was at the site that I have yet to drive was the Audi A3 E-Tron. Unfortunately, I did not sign up for the Ride and Drive portion of the event in front, and I wasn’t that thrilled to drive a plug-in hybrid anyway, so I skipped it. I spent the time at the event talking to and catching up with EV friends and decided to pass on the evening reception for the conference.

Leaving Santa Monica during rush hour is often an exercise in futility. I decided to take some surface streets South through Venice. Had an interesting sighting on my drive. I spotted some manufacturer cars being driven around. Unfortunately they were not EVs, but still a thrill to spot these camouflaged vehicles on the road. I’m guessing its a new BMW 7 series, but could be a 5 series, I suppose.

Hard to see, but click and zoom in on the rearview mirror. Can’t mistake the “kidney beans” on the front grill.

I know that BMW is working on further electrification, but it would have been cool to spot a new EV on the road.

Long Beach, September 17, 2016

The following day, Saturday, September 17, I attended the NDEW gathering in Long Beach, CA. This event was the closest to the traditional NDEW events that I have attended in the past. This one had less manufacturer involvement in it and more public-facing event. It was more traditional in that we were welcomed by some politicians and spent the time just “hanging out” and talking to folks.

There were a lot of Teslas at this event because the Tesla Owners Club of Orange County had identified this particular NDEW for its annual NDEW event.

All manners of Teslas were represented.

The red roadster was for sale and is VIN #5.

Of course the Falcon Wing Doors have to go up with the Model X in the crowd.

It is the latest Tesla around.

and we had three Roadsters at this event.

There was representation from members of the EV community as well.

From other vehicles like the Zero Motorcycle and Smart ED.

To several Leafs and a Porsche 912 conversion that gets around 150 miles.

There was a Fiat 500e and a Coda (same owner as was in Santa Monica the previous day and Los Angeles the previous week.)

Even the Honda Fit EV made an appearance. Three times, to be exact.

I don’t believe many of the Tesla owners allowed the public to take a drive in their vehicle. The owner for the Red Roadster #5 did take a few interested parties out in that car, then again she was also taking the opportunity to see if anyone wanted to buy her car.

The other manufacturer’s car was different. I saw a few take rides in the converted Porsche and I believe one of the Leafs took a drive around.

Conclusion

Around Southern California, National Drive Electric Week is celebrated in many places and some get a lot of car manufacturer support, whereas others are sparsely attended by the manufacturers. It’s great to see all the participation in these events and I hope that more and more and convinced to go electric as a result of attending these EVents. As for letting folks drive our EVs, I was a lot more forgiving when I drove the Active E for this event, but when we moved to the Tesla, not so much. Besides, in California, Tesla does a great job providing folks with a nice long drive at their retail locations. Some of the events seem well attended, whereas others are more sparse. The one in Diamond Bar was much better this year, but the Los Angeles one seemed to have less people. Either way, I hope that we’ve convinced more people to go electric.

I often look forward to September because of this week and am looking forward to when it becomes every day that we celebrate Drive Electric Days.

One of my favorite National Drive Electric Week events last year was the one in Los Angeles. Mainly because almost all the EVs and PHEVs available on the market were represented by the OEMs for test drives at that event.

I was able to test drive the new, larger battery Nissan Leaf last year and we saw one of the early Bolt EVs at the same event.

The particular lawn on Expo Park that the event is located was just behind the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

We arrived just before 11:00 AM, about two hours after the event started. As opposed to the Diamond Bar event where EV and PHEV drivers park separately from ICE vehicles, the LA event has OEMs provide the Ride and Drive event, so all public attendees have to park in the parking lots nearby.

We headed to the sign-in tent and got some giveaways from the organizers.

This year’s event did not seem to have as many people as the previous year’s event.

It was well attended by the car manufacturers.

The Bolt EV was there, alas, Chevy was only letting folks drive the new Volt.

One of the cool things that is at this carnival-like atmosphere were the creative games that some of the exhibitors allowed the public to play with, and I had a good time playing Chevy’s Plinko game. I ended up winning some “flip-flops” by pairing the token with its corresponding Chevy color.

Around the driveway where the ride and drive events were being held, was an interesting solar powered Level 2 charger. I didn’t see anyone use these chargers, but it was cool to spot it. It’s not permanently installed, so I’m sure it’s meant to be portable.

Looks like LAPD still kept the Tesla Motors Model S and BMW i3, but the i8 from last year was nowhere to be found.

We caught the vehicles with their lights flashing…

…about the only time I like to see the flashing lights.

I signed up to ride the Volve PHEV, the Volvo XC90 T8 as it was the ONLY one of the plug in cars that was available to test drive that I have not driven yet. I went to the Volvo tent to fill out all the information to get a test drive. The wait was a few minutes, but as my turn was up, the panel regarding EV Storytelling with Chris Paine, Dean Devlin, and Chelsea Sexton was about to start. So, I paused my drive to go and listen to the panel.

I figured to stream the event, so I set it up my iPad for a Periscope session. (I also uploaded the same content on Youtube for those that prefer that.)

Volvo XC90 T8

So, how was the drive for the Volvo XC90 T8? Well…

It has a nice interior.

and the seats were comfy…

However, I never did get to experience it in EV mode. For the very short amount of time that I did drive it, the representative and the car wouldn’t let me experience it without the ICE engaged. So, it was quite disappointing.

I think Volvo has a lot to learn of why folks do drive events at National Drive Electric Week.

As a reward for doing a test drive, we got vouchers to get food from the food trucks at the event. We used ours for Border Grill and Coolhaus.

There were other choices there as well.

One of the interesting exhibitors at the event was Greencommuter.org and one of their Tesla Model X.

Had a good few minutes to talk to their representatives about their business and their plans to assist area commuters to swap their vanpools for clean EVs (such as the Model X.)

Additionally, the guys from Tesla Club LA had a tent at the event and had a few of their cars there.

For the past few years, I’ve always attended several of the National Drive Electric Week events throughout Southern California. This year, the first EVent that we visited was in Diamond Bar at the Southern California Air Quality Management District.

Since one of the many questions that the public often ask at these events is “how far can you go with your EV.” Last year we went from Southern California to Maine, this summer, we went to the Tesla Gigafactory Party, The Long Way Round via Vancouver, BC.